Uncle Shikamaru
by FearandLoathingXIX
Summary: Shikamaru meant it when he said he would protect Asuma and Kurenai's child, with his life if necessary... but at the moment taking him to the playground seems to be sufficient. Not that that isn't dangerous enough.


Inspired by my love of Shikamaru and the interesting ideas brought on by Asuma's death.

I couldn't seem to find anything particularly of this bat, so I went and wrote something for it myself XD

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_Uncle Shikamaru_

_Aka_

_Shika-baka-chaaan! _

A boy of about five years old runs wildly around a playground with the sun glinting off of his red eyes and dirt ground into his dark hair. No one can really explain it, but somehow he manages to look _exactly_ like both of his parents at the same time.

His father when he smiles and his mother when he sulks.

His mother in the garden and his father in a restaurant (especially when Choji's treating him to BBQ).

His father when he bleeds, and his mother when he cries.

First of all he terrorises the other children off the slide and goes down it about thirty times in a seemingly continuous loop, until someone 'manages' to take his cigarette away from his mouth long enough to tell him to lighten up and let the other children play too. He frowns and looks exactly like his mother; deadpan face and just a tiny disapproving twist at the corner of his mouth, and moves onto the monkey bars.

But just going back and forth along the monkey bars simply wouldn't be enough for him, not by a long shot, so within minutes he's already on top of them trying to jump on other children's fingers. He quickly succeeds in trapping a girl probably a year or two older than him right in the middle, and is about to dully stomp on her poor fingers when his whole body freezes, paralysing his small frame and rooting him to the spot.

"Heeeey!" he whines with a scowl that belongs to neither his father or his mother, but someone who's shadow has crawled up the structure of the monkey bars and tapped into his 5 year-old silhouette, preventing him from seriously injuring any of his playmates for the time being, "stop that's'not _faair!_"

"Fair's fair." Shikamaru announces as ash builds up on the end of his cigarette, and he wiggles it in the corner of his mouth almost comically. As a master strategist he could've possibly tried to look more dignified than this,but eventually he gives up and just lets it burn, "if you want I'll stamp on your fingers and see how you like it."

The boy scowls at him again, and Shikamaru sees the face he wore (and still wears) himself whenever someone asks him to do some pointless or troublesome kind of work. On the receiving end he has discovered how very infuriating it can be.

Soon balancing atop a set of monkey bars on only one foot begins to take an effect on the boy, and with a sudden piercing scream he loses balance and topples. However, before he can hit anything damaging an arm has him around the chest and scoops him out of harm's way.

"Troublesome…" Shikamaru mutters as he swings his sensei's son about and ignores the high-pitched squeals of a hyperactive 5-year-old he shouldn't have let Haruno Sakura give so many sweets at lunch.

"Shikaaaaa!" he screams, kicking the jounin's legs in protest (but equally likely to throw a tantrum if he were put down), "Let gooooooo!" Shikamaru bounces him up and down as he traps his cigarette between the first two fingers of his free hand, and slowly moves it away from his mouth as he exhales.

Kurenai would probably bitch at him for smoking around her son if she were here, but luckily she's not (as she's on a mission), and he can always point out that it'd be no worse than if his real father were still around. Hell, it'd be _worse. _He smokes much less than Asuma… _so far._

"Ahhh ahhh ahhh _ahhh!" _The boy screams as the arm looping under his armpits swings him back and forth like a wet towel, and they begin to back away from the troublesome monkey bars and head towards the swings while Shikamaru takes a few final drags on the cigarette.

"Che, you're so heavy now, Natsume." He complains as the boy manages to wriggle free and with a triumphant scream dashes behind him and tries to push him over with his cute little arms.

"I am_not!" _he yells insistently, but then seeing an empty spot on the swings sprints towards it and tackles the seat head on, catching it with his stomach and swooping forwards with his arms outspread, screaming fit to burst the entire time.

"_Careful_," Shikamaru groans as the boy rockets back and forth, "your mom will never forgive me if you fall on your face and it all gets squashed through to the back of your head by accident."

After the words sink in, the boy stops 'flying' fpr a few moments and turns to stare nervously at Shikamaru; who remains completely deadpan and solemnly adds, "then I guess they'd probably all call you backwards-face-kid, because you'd have a nose right here instead of where it should be on your face." He raises a hand and taps the back of his head demonstratively, and the boy mirrors the action while stepping nervously away from the swing as if it were about to attack him.

Shikamaru then remembers something about the boy's mom telling him to stop 'tormenting' her child, and with a sigh stomps out the remains of his cigarette and goes forwards to scoop Natsume up onto the seat.

"Never mind." He sighs, lazily laying one hand on either side of the swing and bracing himself against it.

"You ready?" he asks Natsume: the child of his late sensei whom he's sworn to protect, and Natsume stares back at him with his mother's crimson eyes but his father's smile. Somehow doing that thing of looking just like both of them all at once.

"Ready!" he cries energetically, bouncing up and down in the seat in spite of it being held on either side and not actually going anywhere, "Really really high, okay?"

"Tch," he scoffs, taking a small step back and then beginning to push forwards, "you're so troublesome, you know?"

The boy doesn't reply, but screams in excitement as he is hauled up and kicks his legs enthusiastically, forcing Shikamaru into some quick evasive manoeuvres to save his face from a good booting.

When he's got the kid at what seems like a plausibly 'high' height that won't cause him to go flying off the swing (like the other times), Shikamaru ducks under the child-and-seat to get himself out of the danger range, then a with disinterested yawn releases them. With a warcry that even Naruto would be proud of Natsume throws himself enthusiastically into swinging, pedaling his legs back and forth as quickly as he can in the hopes of going faster. But of course, he has yet to understand momentum and now only hinders his velocity as opposed to aiding it.

Nonetheless, Shikamaru leans back against one of the metal legs of the swings and keeps one arm out to push the boy's back whenever he slows down, and then upon getting lost in that routine and unconsciously following another; he finds himself lighting up another cigarette without even thinking about it.

He frowns when he first takes a drag on it and realizes what he's done, then tries to recall exactly how many packs Asuma used to get through in a day, wondering how the student is measuring up to the teacher over the five or six odd years that've passed since his death. He never actually _intended _to get hooked on the damn things, but they reminded him of his sensei and got him through the worst of it and stupidly made him feel stronger... and by the time he was addicted it was _far_ too troublesome to quit anyway.

"Chain smoker."

"Yo, Ino. Still dieting?"

"None of your damn business."

He could never be sure whether Ino was dieting or not these days, one minute she was eating a rice-cake a day on the insistence that she'd never bag a husband looking like Choji with good hair, and the next she'd tuck into a table-full of barbeque proclaiming that not only did she not care about her image, but that she'd have to eat 'healthily' if she was going to bear strong children.

If he even dared to point out that first she had to start dating men who weren't losers or bums he'd never live to tell the tale… _so_, whenever he did he usually made sure he either had her shadow or a good set of running shoes on (preferably both).

As a matter of fact it was undoubtedly because of the 'children' point that Ino had been drawn to him at this particular time; she'd been broody for a brat of her own since _forever _and seemed to hone in on any minor in a five mile radius. Especially those related to people she knew, _those _were the ones she could harass freely.

"Ino-chaaan!!" Natsume hollers as he kicks forwards and flings himself off the swing at full height, hurtling towards the ground not particularly in the direction of Ino... or anyone else for that matter, and screams of excitement quickly turn to horror as Natsume realizes what's happening to him.

The moment the boy leaves the seat of the swing Shikamaru's mind begins to click into action, domino falling upon domino as his thoughts are set into motion and start evaluating the numerous ways to save both the boy's and his own health (as Kurenai would not hesitate to inflict all pain effected on her boy to the 'negligent slacker' held responsible for it).

But in the end he chooses impulse number one and simply dives in headfirst to catch the child - the discomfort of using himself as a break mat being the least amount of pain he can endure while also saving the boy. However, what he catches instead is Choji's leg; giving himself a black eye as he smashes clumsly into his teammate's kneecap.

"Whuarrrr!" Roars Choji as he catches Natsume and bounces him around on his stomach, seemingly ignorant of Shikamaru's laying on the ground and groaning, "You gotta be careful, Natsume-kun, you could get hurt jumping about like that." Natsume squeals happily and grabs fistfuls of Choji's long hair to pull, his brief moment of fear long forgotten as he's now regaling in the wonder of a new playmate.

"But if you _are_ hurt then remember Ino-chan can always make it better!" Ino butts in enthusiastically, crooning over Choji like a vulture to get a look in on her Teammate's godson, "Because _who_ is she a better medical ninja than?"

Natsume looks thoughtful for a moment, and stops squirming around in Choji's arms long enough to wrinkle up his nose (just like his mother would when his father smoked on her) and say, "…Sakura-chan?"

"Yes!" Ino cries happily, while producing a handful of sweets out of nowhere and shuffling them teasingly behind her back, "Good boy! Now _guess_what auntie Ino's got for you?" Natsume's dirt-scrubbed face lights up and he begins to ascend Choji much like he did with the monkey bars, clambering up boisterously and attempting to launch himself into the air once more to land on the confectionary-promising Ino.

"No." Shikamaru grumbles from the floor, attempting to straighten out his crumpled cigarette and blink the grit out of his one workable eye (as the other has just been beaten shut), "No more sweets." Both Ino and Natsume wail in an appalling fashion at this denouncement, turning their attention resentfully towards the twentyone-year-old Jounin laying flat out on the ground, wincing through the eye he hit on Choji shut and dragging heavily on the remains of his crushed cigarette.

"You know," Choji starts up thoughtfully as he steps back to give Shikamaru enough space to stand, who reluctantly does so while rubbing his face and muttering about things being of a very 'troublesome' nature, "you turn into a complete idiot around this kid."

"Yep," Ino adds obnoxiously, slipping boiled sweet after boiled sweet into Natsume's hands and hoping his guardian doesn't notice, "you really do… I mean, just _look _at you."

Shikamaru scowls at them with a scratched jaw from where he dived, what'll probably be a full-on black eye tomorrow, and some various other scrapes he's 'won' over the course of the day for just trying to look after this boy, but unfortunately knows that his teammates are completely right.

Normally he, Shikamaru Nara the 'master strategist', would never in a million years not _look _before he leapt – yet throw a screaming Natsume off the swings and he won't even _think_, let alone think _twice_, about diving straight in (and accidentally head butting his best friend in the knee).

He was going to have to face it… the kid **did** make him an idiot… which was somewhat troublesome.

"Tch," he scoffs with a bored expression, eventually strolling up to Ino and grabbing her by the wrist then shaking the candy she's been hiding into his own hand to prevent any more smuggling, "what do you guys know?"

Then he approaches the youngest person present, one guilty-looking Natsume poorly trying to conceal the five boiled sweets he has in his mouth. Shikamaru rolls his eyes and presents the boy with an opened palm, then makes a flicking gesture with his fingers and holds them even closer to his mouth, forcing Natsume to reluctantly spit the foresworn candy out.

Ino pulls a face, and Choji even goes slightly green at the sight of the half-sucked sweets dribbling over Shikamaru's hand. But he's _used _to it. Hell, he's dealt with _far_ grosser child-things than gooey sweets before… and as a matter of fact he'll probably never recover.

Kurenai unsympathetically called it 'growing up'.

"We know _you_." Ino remarks poignantly, as Shikamaru crouches down next to Choji and Natsume and points lazily up at his shoulders, to which Natsume grins and crawls up him as if he were another part of the playground (which in the boy's eyes he probably is), "You better not forget to show me that black eye tomorrow, okay Shikamaru?" She teases as he stands again with the boy seated securely on his shoulders, finally giving up on the cigarette and discarding it as Natsume starts pulling and tugging at the top of his hair.

He winces slightly and turns to walk away, Kurenai is supposed to be back from her mission tonight and he assured her he'd have the monster in bed by that time. Factoring in the amount of sugar he's already consumed with the addition of these sweets he's only had a bit of, leaving now will give him enough time to sugar-high and crash without causing a public disturbance…. Possibly.

"You're very troublesome, you know that?" He informs Natsume as the boy's grubby hands work his already tangled hair into a mess that it's probably never going to come out, so there's no point even _trying_ unless Ino has jumped him with her army of hair products on the insistance that he's 'disgusting'.

"Mhm," Natsume replies cheerfully, leaning forwards and tickling his nose on Shikamaru's ponytail with hysterical giggles.

" But I love you, you know that as well?" Loud, difficult, annoying, demanding and manipulative as he is, Shikamaru is well aware that he loves this boy to pieces and makes no secret of it: he'd _meant _it when he said he would protect him, with his life if necessary.

But taking care of him when his mom is working and helping her cope with the stress of being a single mother _and _a ninja seems to be enough for now.

"Yep!" Natsume cheers and drums his legs happily against either side of Shikamaru's vest, then leans over even farther so he can meet his eyes, and after crossing his own and making the closest thing he's got to a dad laugh proclaims, "Love you too!!"

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Yes the ending is shamefully fluffy, but I wrote this for the cute so XP 

Very interested to know what readers think of this, and in fact if you've read this far I thank you anyway: I know it's a tad on the long side but I hope you enjoyed reading it like I did writing it :D


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